When did the latino presence in America really start to become noticable?

I know I shun race threads, but I don't consider this a race thread, it is something I hav always been curious about being a non american.

I remember growing up as a kid in the 90s and being very aware through school and the adults in my life that America was meant to have been 90% white and with a 10% black minority, and that Britain and Ireland colonised it.

American media has always seemed almost identical to my own culture as well as in a similar racial composition except America had a large african american minority.

Then I remember in my spanish class in 2003 when I was 12, we were going through our spanish outside of Spain section and there was a picture of a girl in Nueva York whom was born there and her family were Puerto Rican, and my teacher told the class "Yes! They also speak spanish in America too!"

I thought this was strange because up until then I have NEVER seen ANY indication watching the thousands of americans films and music videos and songs that there were 30 million spanish speakers in that country, to me it looked just as black and white and anglo speaking as it apparently was in the 50s.

Then Jennifer Lopez was famous and christina aguilera, and grand theft auto san andreas came out and so on and so forth and I became more aware that America is undergoing a latinization which is a unique cultural evolution for England's successor.

Britain has only recently been multicultural, and its apparent on our television, but I rarely can pin point in watching american tv and music over the past 50 years of when exactly the latino population explosion first occured.

Can I get an older realjocks memories to tell the story of his observation of when the cultural shift in America began and what it was like at this time.

Everyone speaks of black inner city america and the urban erosion and white flight from this, but I find the latinisation of America all the more interesting from a Bicultural standpoint.

I would say the mid to late '90s when the influx of Mexican immigrants sped up dramatically. Now they are the biggest minority group in America and will no doubt eventually outnumber all other minority groups combined.

I really give props to the educational institutions that are readying non-Latinos for an inevitable bilingual future. My school for example requires 4 semesters of a language (most students pick Spanish) and an upper level study as well. I believe that high schools and junior highs will get more intensive with Spanish study (they may even require it).

I'm interested to see how the sudden legitimization of once illegal workers due to the immigration bill will effect the economy.

CopperDevil saidoh well its not a race thread because latino is not a race

phew, now that's out of the way, how do you english speaking American's handle the influx of spanish speakers into the states?

It's not like the french in Quebec which is a solid colonised ethnicity with a strongly defined georgraphical boundary.

Cities that were once italian, german, russian,yiddish, gaelic and english speaking are now just spanish and english speaking, and with the former western USA being a former part of New Spain I can see how that might cause lingistic tension.

CopperDevil saidoh well its not a race thread because latino is not a race

phew, now that's out of the way, how do you english speaking American's handle the influx of spanish speakers into the states?

It's not like the french in Quebec which is a solid colonised ethnicity with a strongly defined georgraphical boundary.

Cities that were once italian, german, russian,yiddish, gaelic and english speaking are now just spanish and english speaking, and with the former western USA being a former part of New Spain I can see how that might cause lingistic tension.

I dont really mind, i mean where i live it hasent really cuased a big problem, I think the subject is stronger in places like miami and south florida

CopperDevil saidoh well its not a race thread because latino is not a race

phew, now that's out of the way, how do you english speaking American's handle the influx of spanish speakers into the states?

It's not like the french in Quebec which is a solid colonised ethnicity with a strongly defined georgraphical boundary.

Cities that were once italian, german, russian,yiddish, gaelic and english speaking are now just spanish and english speaking, and with the former western USA being a former part of New Spain I can see how that might cause lingistic tension.

Force them to speak english. We are too busy and too lazy to learn another language noone really cares about.

Since I'm a white latino the brown ones think I'm Anglo and I speak English to them out of spite even though I know Spanish.

CopperDevil saidoh well its not a race thread because latino is not a race

phew, now that's out of the way, how do you english speaking American's handle the influx of spanish speakers into the states?

It's not like the french in Quebec which is a solid colonised ethnicity with a strongly defined georgraphical boundary.

Cities that were once italian, german, russian,yiddish, gaelic and english speaking are now just spanish and english speaking, and with the former western USA being a former part of New Spain I can see how that might cause lingistic tension.

I dont really mind, i mean where i live it hasent really cuased a big problem, I think the subject is stronger in places like miami and south florida

One thing I can see is that I understand the fear of some americans of its latinization.

Barack Obama is relatable in Britain and even Australia because africa and africans have been largely absorbed into all branches of western civilization, however would a Latino president not be confusing and hard to adapt to on the world stage given that America is a former british colony.

I can see Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan enjoying their special relationship, as well as Barack Obama and David Cameon, but US President Garcia with UK Prime Minister Smith sounds confusing.

I travel into the U.S every couple of years or so (I have a few friends as well as family)and I'm amazed by how noticeable the hispanic population is. At Universal stuidos I remember they would have warnings in English and in Spanish and people would announce things over the speaker firstly in english and then in Spanish. The other thing that was quite interesting was that on a lot of seperate occasions I would have people come up to me and say "Habla Espanol"? thinking I was Puerto Rican or someone with mixed heritage "Mulatto" which told me that even those that are second generation hispanic would know Spanish as well as their immigrant parents.

CopperDevil saidoh well its not a race thread because latino is not a race

phew, now that's out of the way, how do you english speaking American's handle the influx of spanish speakers into the states?It's not like the french in Quebec which is a solid colonised ethnicity with a strongly defined georgraphical boundary.Cities that were once italian, german, russian,yiddish, gaelic and english speaking are now just spanish and english speaking, and with the former western USA being a former part of New Spain I can see how that might cause lingistic tension.

The contries south on the tropic of Capricorn have an European descendant majority (mostly Italian, Spanish, German and in lesser amount french and other light skinned europeans)Peru and Bolivia have an amerindian majorityThe countries that surround the caribbean sea have a noticeable percentage of african descendant and they are a majority in Cuba and Dominican RepublicMestizos (half spanish half amerindian) make up the majority of the populations in the other Spanish speaking countries of the Americas.There are several dialects and accents of Spanish being Colombian accent the most neutral one.

I just believe that America (specifically law makers in congress) noticed Latino's (namely Mexicans) as a "problem" beginning in the late 20th early 21st century.

All the talk of immigration reform and low employment really got people's attention.

The low employment is due to big business moving their factories to India and China because of the basically free labor. The government also does not tell you how many people are immigrating to the US and taking over all the IT jobs here in the US from countries in the middle east... go to any IT company and you will find that mostly all the technicians are immigrants from the middle east. Corporations are also getting huge tax breaks for hiring them. It's so much easier for the government to blame south of the border illegal immigration for the loss of jobs (which is a huge lie) then tell you the truth of what is really going on. One World Order.

IrishDarren saiddude, England, Spain and France are and were always the three biggest global cultural rivals, each intimidate/d the other and still do.

Africa has the latin alphabet, is largely christian and is largely made up of former british,french and spanish colonies like the Americas.

Europes undergoing an islamification not unlike the latinization of America, but it's more religious than lingistic shift.

I disagree. If anything it's the rightwingers that frighten me. They're ringing the townbell and talking about "all these muslims moving to Europe and taking over Europe, soon we're all gonna be muslims!"; when in fact many children who are born here to muslim parents are very secularized, if not atheists.

There are signs all over Europe of conservative parties rising; one of the leading parties in Norway e.g. suggested to ban all immigration from Somalia because Somalians have a "higher chance of raping women". Sometimes it feels like Europe is really about to repeat its history.

If you had let me decide, I'd trash all relgious buildings and just build hospitals, schools and apartments for people to live in. Being atheist, I despise the abrahamitic religions equally; and I don't think any of them should be treated any differently just because they have some "historical value". I never really understood the argument of conservatism. The church was a tool of oppression that subdued people for thousands of years, yet that is supposed to be praised. Slavery, that to some extent was the same thing, is never taken up as argument to keep because of its "historical value".

All in all, I like when cultures mix and meld. A culture rarely usurps another culture fully, which some people seem to fear and prophesize. Not even during missionary work, that could be quite forceful, was a culture completely overwritten. In Sweden we still celebrate midsummer, which has almost nothing to do with christianity; but it's a remnant of the culture that existed before.

When a foreign cuisine is introduced into a country, it's usually slightly altered to fit the local cuisine. This in itself becomes a unique fusion, and is pretty much how I see cultures work as well. Culture is never really extinguished, it simply develops.